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Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus

Grey-backed Thrush Turdus hortulorum

Asian House Martin Delichon dasypus

Narcissus Flycatcher Ficedula narcissina

Asian Brown Flycatcher Muscicapa latirostris

Common Kingfisher Alcedo atthis

Olive-backed Pipit Anthus hodgsoni

Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea

Dolharubang

My former neighbourhood

Lovely old park

Another old patch

Good eating

My happy place: Flycatchers, burbling cold 

Hallasan water, and a flurry of cherry blossom petals...

Seogwipo, April 11, 2019
  Whereas I left Gangneung with a heavy heart, I floated through Seogwipo today on a fluttery, weightless heart. A town of memories and ghosts, and a vastly different feel from Gangenung, bird-wise...guess it’s the whole sub-tropical vibe. The southern drawl of the Brown-eared Bulbuls was odd to my ear, and the Great Tits - they sound totally different from up north! I wasn’t sure what I was hearing at first.
  I spent six hours checking in on old haunts, and while there have been some changes over the past five years, most of my fave spots were, for the most part, just how I left them. Seogwipo was my second home for years, and the backyard of that home was my preferred overgrown river park, where I whiled away many a morning stumbling upon great birds, with many lifers and rarities among them (such as Scaly-breasted Munia, White-shouldered Starling, Zappey’s Flycatcher). I went in with my stomach in fists, fearful I would see concreted riverbanks and dumb coffee shops. Everything unclenched when I walked down in the dim light and saw that such was not the case. It was exactly the same – creepily so. It was like some dead teenage son’s bedroom – untouched while everything else around it moves on. The same patch of grass is bare, the same tree limb blocks a path, the same planks on the boardwalk are missing – I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed noting all that. Don’t ever change, overgrown park. Time for a nap.

Notable:
Black-winged Stilt-4 in the harbour
Pacific Swift-2 way up high
Barn Swallow-120+
Red-rumped Swallow-12+
Asian House Martin-9 flying slightly higher than the other hirundines
Olive-backed Pipit-8 in the park
Pale Thrush-6 heard bupping from the undergrowth
Grey-backed Thrush-1 at dusk
Japanese Bush Warbler-how I missed that song…
Narcissus Flycatcher-1 male in the park
Asian Brown Flycatcher-2 in the park
Japanese White-eye-70+ twinkling from every form of greenery
Black-faced Bunting-1